


The Waiting Game

by MadameReveuse



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Continuum Civil War, M/M, Picard dithering, Post-Traumatic Stress, Romance, as he always does, implied past Q/Quinn, now with more war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-01-07 10:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12230994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameReveuse/pseuds/MadameReveuse
Summary: The Q Continuum is about to have a war, and Q visits Picard to settle some things before it's too late.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guess who's attempting a multi-chapter thing again!! It is I. This'll probably not have any more than two additional chapters but still, it counts.  
> I wanted to do something more with the Q Civil War than Voyager did and this is the result for now. I hope you like the idea, if you do, you can leave a comment - stranger things have happened.  
> Also and especially if you have any qcard headcanons you desperately need to bounce off someone, you can say hello on my tumblr, @andsamadams!! I'm always down to talk.

When Picard, after a long day of commanding his starship, entered his quarters for some well-earned rest and found them already occupied, his first thought was, “oh, not again.”

“Q,” he said dourly. “What do you want this ti—”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence, as Q was already upon him, grabbing him by the front of his uniform, hauling him close and pressing an almost violent kiss to his mouth.

Picard wrenched himself away. “Q, what is this?!” he demanded, somewhere between aghast and furious. “Is this another te—”

“Forget tests,” Q said. “We’re all going to die.”

And then, to Picard’s considerable anguish, he raised his hand to snap out.

“Q, hold on,” he commanded, grabbing the entity by the wrist. “You can’t just come in here, throw yourself at me, drop a line like this and then _leave_.”

Q gave him a look in response that spoke of some deep, ancient terror. “Oh?” he said. “Why not? I’ve always wanted to do something like this, confuse the hell out of some hapless mortal. And why shouldn't I? Everything is futile anyway.”

Picard couldn’t muster the usual annoyance that settled around his temples whenever Q talked. The entity was making even less sense than usual, and there was something in his face, in his voice, in the whole way he stood there, that was deeply unsettling. Q looked… agitated, and that was wrong. Jean-Luc had seen Q at some pretty low points, doing things at the Continuum’s behest that he didn’t like doing, robbed of his powers, even close to attempted suicide, he had seen Q angry, annoyed, ashamed, depressed and even scared… but he had never seen visible agitation on him. This uncommon display had Picard fluctuating between fear and worry. And then that kiss, that _kiss_ …

_Stop it,_ Picard told himself sternly. He could think about the kiss later, in private. Right now, he had to find out what Q wanted.

“What is this, Q?” he asked. “What is going on? I demand an explanation.”

“You _demand? You_ demand!” Q laughed, but it was not a happy laugh. It was the little sound people make when they’re on the brink of hysterics. “You have no power to demand anything of me. You can’t keep me here.”

“ _You_ came here and—”

Q whirled around abruptly and started pacing, dragging his hands through his hair. “I don’t want to debate this with you.”

“Then what do you want?”

Q stopped, turned again, and… deflated. His next words came out as a petulant murmur. “I want nothing. I want to see Quinn.”

Jean-Luc furrowed his brows. “Who is Quinn?”

Q exhaled a hissing breath. “Quinn _is_ not. Quinn _was_.”

It took Jean-Luc a second. “You mean to say he’s… dead?”

Q sniffed in distaste. “Yes. Dead. Ridiculous, isn’t it?”

It wasn’t the reaction that Picard usually associated with death. But then again, Q was so very different from everyone else he knew. “A friend of yours?” he asked.

“Hah. Friend. Yes, perhaps. And just about everything else, too. He was…” He faltered. “Your human words can barely describe the complex interrelations of the Q.”

Picard’s eyebrows shot up to where his hairline would be if fate were kinder. “A _Q_ who dies?”

“I know. As I said, it’s ridiculous. This was not supposed to happen. The Continuum can’t even begin to handle this right now. It’s unheard of that one of us just… vanishes like that. You know, he was there when the Continuum began. He was always there, and now he is just… not there. Even when we placed him in isolation, there was always an opportunity to go talk to him. I never fathomed that I’d be deprived of that opportunity.”

Picard began to realize that what he was seeing here resembled a child’s approach to grief. Q was a creature utterly unused to death – oh, it happened all around him all the time, but his fellow Q at the very least endured. Now there had been a death in the family, and he was turning the concept around and around trying to fit it into his head. Picard felt reminded of his nephew Rene, five years old and trying to figure out where his beloved guinea pig had gone.

“You know, all that knowledge, all that experience just not at the Continuum’s disposal anymore, it’s a shame,” Q was saying. “Of course in theory I can always go hang out with him in the past, when he was still alive, but… there are rules against that sort of thing. The linear flow of time is not terribly important to us, but it’s not good for a Q to live in the past. One could easily… lose focus on things. I’ll have to accept that Q is… gone. But… there were so many things I never said to him, so many things we wanted to do together but never got around to because, well, there was no hurry, was there? We had eternity ahead of us. I never thought…”

Q went quiet. It was clear that he was deeply affected. For a brief moment, Jean-Luc wondered just how friendly Q had been with that Quinn fellow. “How did he die?” he asked in a softer tone than he would normally use with the entity.

“Oh, I killed him.”

That answer, in that casual tone of voice, shocked Picard. “You did _what?”_

“I gave him mortality, and I gave him the poison.”

“Why?”

“Because he begged me to.”

“I don’t think I quite understand.”

“It’s a long story. Part of which I’m not even allowed to tell you. It was an assisted death. Quinn wanted to die. At first we wouldn’t let him, but at the last, we acquiesced.” Q sighed.

Jean-Luc cleared his throat. “Well, I’m… sorry for your loss, Q. It’s quite natural to be shaken by the death of your… companion. But that doesn’t really explain the manner of your entrance earlier.”

“Another long story. Here, I’ll sit.” Q sat down on the couch.

Picard chose to remain standing. Q was different, more open, perhaps even more vulnerable today than he usually presented himself, but that didn’t mean Picard trusted him now. He was familiar enough with Q’s mood swings to know that one wrong word could set him off into a fit of pique.

“As I already said, the Continuum is in a state of chaos,” Q began. “It’s not just the whole… impossibility of the very concept of a Q committing suicide. You have to understand that Quinn’s death was deeply political. He knew that. It was part of why he wanted to do it so badly. He has set a precedent, he chose to opt out of the life the Continuum wants us to live. Now, other Q are coming out of the woodwork, speaking out about their discontent with our lives. Some have even talked of imitating him. I hope to talk them out of that but either way, I suspect more Q are going to die.”

“Why?” Picard asked. He didn’t quite know how to deal with that new information. In all the years since he’d met Q, he had only just barely managed to wrap his head around the very existence of an immortal, quasi-omnipotent life form. He still hated the insecurity that came with trying to outwit an all-powerful challenger. Reasoning with Q was like dancing on quicksand, simply because Q could choose to listen to him like an equal or squash him like an insect completely at his will. Sometimes, he wasn’t even sure if Q was aware of how intimidating he was. If he thought it was all some silly game, all in good faith, what’s a little omnipotent meddling among friends…?

And now he was presented with new facts. Q dying. Q grieving. Q unhappy with what for all Jean-Luc knew were the lives of gods.

“Well, factions are forming,” Q explained. “There are those among us who are… not exactly susceptible to change. In fact, they’re determined to suppress all change. They’re afraid of it. If they had their way, we’d all just forget about Quinn and go back to the way things were.”

“And you are…?” Hmmm. On the one hand, Q didn’t seem like your average proponent of social change. He seemed willing enough to bend the rules a little so that he could have some fun, but wide-scale societal upheaval? Picard had always been under the impression that Q liked the Continuum perfectly fine the way it was. Plus he had just spoken of dissuading those other Q. But on the other hand, there had been a lot of banked anger in what he had last said.

“I am heeding the call, Picard. I do not want more Q to kill themselves, but that doesn’t mean… look, this is not _about_ dying. It’s about the freedom to change. To deviate from the old ways. The freedom of self-expression, Picard! Do you know that they prohibited the spread of all non-Continuum-approved thought after Q’s first request for death? And not spreading thoughts is not an easy thing to do when you’re part of a hivemind.”

Jean-Luc was surprised by the sudden animated zeal in Q’s expression. Whatever his cause was, precisely, he seemed to believe in it. This was, perhaps, the first time Jean-Luc ever saw Q care about something.

“I know so little about your people,” he said.

“You’re not _supposed_ to know a lot about us. Creation help us if you did. You might just find out we have weaknesses.” Was that sarcasm or just bitterness in Q’s voice? “Anyway, I have supporters now. There are other Q in favor of more freedom in the Continuum. It’s mostly the younger ones, which is not surprising, but a lot of the first generation as well. When they heard about my involvement with Quinn, they just started flocking to me, I couldn’t help it. It appears I’ve come into something like a revolution.”

Jean-Luc made a noise that he hoped communicated that he was impressed.

“Only…” Q said, his enthusiasm giving way to something that looked eerily like worry, “I’m not sure if we can resolve this peacefully. There’s talk on both sides of taking up arms. That’ll be the first time in an eternity that we take the old guns off the shelf. Many of the younger Q have never fought anyone. And now… war, huh?”

Picard stood up even straighter. “A war in the Continuum? Good heavens, Q, are you sure?”

“Yes,” Q said, lowering his eyes. “You see, the Continuum has been stagnant for centuries but when things do happen, they happen fast. Right now it’s a bit like playing telepathic speed chess with half my siblings at once. There are Q who won’t even talk to me anymore. I try to link up with them and it’s just a wall. If this goes on, it might just fracture us. The entire Continuum might fall apart. We might all die.”

“Like you said earlier,” Picard realized.

“I might have been a tiny bit melodramatic, but...”

Q let the sentence taper off into the air between them. Well, Jean-Luc thought. Perhaps it was unwise to bring it up, but… he felt like his mouth was still tingling faintly where Q’s lips had been, so forceful, and perhaps a little desperate.

“I still don’t get why you kissed me.”

“Oh, that’s quite simple: because I wanted to,” Q said. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since you defied me in such a tantalizing manner at Farpoint. I wanted to kiss you again when you rescued those big jellyfish. I wanted to kiss you when you argued with me about Riker, and when they made you puzzle out that time anomaly. I wanted to kiss you and Vash both until your little heads were spinning with it. I wanted to kiss you when I was without my powers, but I didn’t, because I was nobody then, just a washed-up walking corpse of a Q with nothing to offer. I wanted to kiss you when you were Locutus, don’t think I haven’t been watching, I wanted to kiss you all better and rip all that Borg shit out of you and erase these despicable little creatures from existence while I was at it. I wanted to kiss you when you came out of that entirely unpleasant encounter with that Cardassian and his torture chamber – that Cardassian never knew what hit him, by the way. In short, I’ve been wanting to do this for quite a while, but I didn’t, because I thought that in time, you might begin to trust me, even welcome me, if I played my cards right, that you might grow to want me in the way that I want you. In time. But now I’m going to war and I don’t have time. So I decided to do it now, before I go and get shot at by people I’ve known for billions of years.”

Picard cleared his throat. He hadn’t been the recipient of such a passionate confession in decades. Throughout that entire tirade, Q hadn’t paused to breathe even once.

“Wait, what did you do to that Gul?” he asked, just to say something at all.

“Oh, he’s still alive if that’s what you’re wondering, but is that really all the reaction I get?” Q pouted. A tiny part of Picard took notice of Q’s lips now, in a way he hadn’t before, when these lips hadn’t kissed him yet.

“I… well, I’m not quite sure what to say.”

Q rose from his seat. “I don’t want you to say anything much. I was about to leave, anyway. There’s just one thing that I’d like to ask.”

Picard gave him the go-ahead with a wave of his hand.

“If I make it back here… if the Continuum really changes, if they don’t kill me or break me or scare me in line again… do I have a chance with you? Even an ever-so-tiny one?”

Jean-Luc hesitated. He felt, as he often felt with things Q did, that something had been sprung upon him without warning. Sure, he had idly wondered, on occasion, just why Q was so keen on spending eternity with him, or why Q had appeared in his bed twice already, but he had always dismissed those thoughts. What use was it to dwell on anything Q did? Either the entity just enjoyed messing with him for no reason, or he was playing the long game, because not many of his short-term actions added up at all. Either way, even though he admitted to feeling the occasional spot of gratitude for Q, even though he felt like he was getting to know the entity, even though the helpless rage he had once felt at the thought of Q had, with the years, morphed into a sort of resigned tolerance tinged with faint amusement… he had, until recently, had trouble seeing Q as anything but an antagonist.

But…

He had to admit that sometimes, after an especially long and dull day of star-mapping or dealing with Starfleet bureaucrats, he found himself lying in bed at night and thinking of Q’s repeated offer to explore the universe together. When he knew he had to face another day of scraping and bowing to some glorified pencil-pusher, he sometimes caught himself thinking that he could be traveling the cosmos by Q’s side instead, seeing sights that no man had ever seen before, with this sure, wise and weirdly benevolent creature holding his hand.

In short, Q presented a temptation.

And he _was_ physically attractive, although Jean-Luc wasn’t sure it mattered, what with the apparition he thought of as Q’s body being nothing more than a convenient vessel for an entity who had claimed to be so different from humans as to be completely beyond human comprehension.

And that kiss _had_ been remarkable.

He took a deep breath and looked into Q’s waiting face.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Maybe!” Q clapped his hands together in glee. “Splendid! That’s all I needed to hear. Now I believe I can do anything, even win this war.”

Picard couldn’t help it, he had to smile. “I haven’t even given you an affirmative.”

“But at the very least you admitted a possibility. That’s more than I was expecting, honestly. You didn’t accuse me of lying, you didn’t tell me to get off your ship, you didn’t tell me you wished I was dead…”

“Now, now, Q. Wished you were dead? Why would I say a thing like that?”

“You said all the things I listed in the past, and there I was just trying to be friendly. I reckoned throwing myself at you the way I just did would get me at least ten minutes of self-righteous yelling for my troubles.”

“If you considered your chances of success to be that slim, why kiss me in the first place?”

Q crossed his arms. “Because I am most likely going to my death, and it won’t matter anyway. And besides… the thought of ceasing to exist still feels strange to me, but I didn’t want to… die… without having done this.”

“And if you survive?”

Q raised a hand and winked. “Then I’ll definitely take you up on that _maybe_.”

“Take me up…? What is that going to entail, exactly?” Picard asked warily.

“I don’t know yet but I’ll definitely be around. I must leave now,” Q said, stepping closer, “I’m receiving a summons from my allies. Now, real quick, does _maybe_ permit another kiss? One for the road?”

Picard shifted a little. “I don’t know about this, Q.”

“Come on,” Q wheedled. “For luck? So that when I’m flung into enemy fire, I’ll have something to remind me of the glorious potential future for which I fight?”

Picard huffed. “Fine, but make it quick.”

Of course Q did not make it quick. He cupped Picard’s face and savored the kiss, appearing to be in no hurry despite his claim of having just received an important communique from what could probably be called his troops. Jean-Luc observed in a kind of detached disgruntled way that he almost had to stand on his tiptoes. But it didn’t matter, because Q’s lips were infinitely soft, and his mouth was hot, and his tongue curled around Jean-Luc’s in a delicious way. For a man who did not get kissed very often, it was like a rare and exquisite treat. Almost against his will, Jean-Luc felt himself sinking into the kiss, wanting to prolong it, until he felt dizzy from lack of air.

At last, somehow, they separated. Even Q looked a bit flushed and breathless.

“I really do have to go,” he said, regretful now.

“Good luck,” Picard got out. His own voice sounded strangled in his ears.

Q nodded. “Farewell, _mon capitaine_.”

“I’ll be seeing you,” Picard said.

“I sure hope so.” And with the customary flash of light, Q left the scene.

 

* * *

 

Picard, left alone in his room, sat down at his desk and told the computer to begin recording a personal log entry. He sat in silence for a few seconds, then cancelled the log, because he had no idea what to say. He stood again, wandered aimlessly through his quarters, pointlessly attempted to occupy himself by tidying his already tidy surfaces, and at last just began pacing, soon frowning, soon smiling.

He finally knew what Q wanted from him – hah! Q’s intentions were romantic – oh dear. He had told Q that there was a possibility of reciprocation – oh _dear_. Why had he done that? Now the darned entity would never leave him alone. _Why_ had he been so foolish and gotten Q’s hopes up?

A part of Picard that mostly ran on autopilot started to come up with reasons as if it had to defend his actions at a court-martial tomorrow. _You see, your honor, I did not reject the advances of the potentially hostile alien because… I was under duress. He was manipulating me with his powers. He was manipulating me with his words. I felt pity and compassion for his situation. He…_

But no. In his heart, Jean-Luc knew his reasons perfectly well. And he abhorred lying, even to himself. It really was quite simple: he had left Q in the hopes that he’d at the very least consider a romantic relationship with the entity because he had been tempted. He had already realized in that moment that making good on his promise would cause a host of troubles. But all the same, it hadn’t seemed so bad a prospect.

And he had to admit that he still felt all fluttery inside when he remembered those kisses. A tiny, self-indulgent part of him that he usually suppressed wanted to call Q right back here and kiss him some more and talk about what the future might hold. But that was quite impossible since he still needed time to think and besides, what the future held for Q at the moment was apparently some sort of civil war – _merde_.

Picard sternly told himself to get a grip. He had a busy day ahead of him tomorrow, and yet here he was, preoccupied with thoughts about his _love life_ of all things. His love life which Q now figured into. Sure, when you were a Starfleet officer, weird was part of the job as the saying went, but this was ridiculous. He knew that other captains dealt with Weird as well, but he sometimes felt that Q was a little above average on the Weird scale. Just _why_ had he of all the officers in the fleet been burdened with the attentions of this creature?

_Because yours was the first Federation vessel to cross that invisible line the Continuum drew at Farpoint. Because you command the flagship. Because Q fancies bald men? Serves you right,_ he thought.

He got ready for bed, slipped under the covers and told the computer to turn off the lights. He still felt faintly guilty about not making a log entry about the latest Q encounter. Yes, the meeting had been somewhat personal, but the same applied to several of their past meetings, and he had always dutifully logged those, because Starfleet command appreciated every scrap of new information about the Q. They would certainly be thrilled to analyze this civil war situation at Headquarters…

Oh, good heavens. The civil war situation.

Jean-Luc had already been drifting off to sleep. Now he sat up abruptly, his eyes wide. He was just now beginning to grasp that if Q had told the truth (and Picard was sure he had, for why make up such a lie?), he was involved in honest-to-god battle right now, getting shot at or stabbed or whatever else the Q did to hurt each other. He understood now that Q might never return.

Q hadn’t meant to manipulate Jean-Luc into consenting to a romance. Hell, the entity had already been overjoyed by the vague non-answer he had gotten. Q quite simply didn’t expect to survive, and had wanted closure on this whole affair.

Picard immediately felt shame creep up on him. Here he was thinking about how _inconvenient_ this all was for him, when Q might literally not live. And he had sent him off with nothing but some lukewarm well-wishes. Couldn’t he at least have come up with some rousing, reassuring, comforting words, as he would have done for absolutely anyone else in that situation? He had sent crewmen off to hazardous away missions with little chance of return. They had been desperate, afraid, just like Q, but Jean-Luc had always found some way to calm them, strengthen their resolve, to let them know that if they didn’t make it back, they’d be remembered, always. Why had he been so tongue-tied just earlier? Whatever Q might have been and done, he deserved better.

And if Q died, would he ever know? He didn’t exactly trust the Continuum to get word back to him.

It took a long time for Jean-Luc to fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

“Captain? You seem… distracted.”

“Is that so,” Jean-Luc muttered. This was the third time that one of the bridge crew had noticed him being unusually absent-minded today, and the alpha shift wasn’t even half over yet. The first two times had been Riker and Data, both relatively easy to brush off. But now it was Deanna.

“I sense some sort of conflict within you,” she insisted. “Something serious?”

“Ah, nothing of immediate importance,” Picard said. “Just, hah… thinking about the upcoming vacation.”

The crew knew about his reluctance to take time off work, and he hoped this would explain the inner “conflict”. They had just completed a long and tiresome diplomatic mission involving no less than five Federation ambassadors. Before that, they’d had a shipwide outbreak of Terellian flu that had kept Doctor Crusher busy for days. The crew was worn out; Picard had ordered shore leave for all of them. They were heading to Pacifica for some rest and recreation. What the crew needed right now was to collectively lay on a beach for a few days.

He hadn’t told the crew about seeing Q the previous night. It was… personal. He couldn’t even fathom talking to Data or Troi or, god forbid, Riker about his feelings and the fact that he had allowed Q to kiss him not once but twice, and didn’t even have the good sense to regret it. Sure, he had, of late, allowed the distance between himself and his senior officers – his friends, his family – to shrink. The thought of discussing his love life with Deanna Troi, in her professional capacity or just as a friend, didn’t evoke the visceral horror it once had. But discussing his feelings for Q? Who could possibly understand? He didn’t fully understand _himself_ …

He couldn’t stop thinking about everything that had transpired. It still was an odd thought, Q of all people putting his life on the line for a cause. Picard really didn’t have enough information on Q’s revolution or the Continuum in general to judge if Q’s cause was just. But the thought of Q caring about something, anything at all, enough to die for it was… an exciting change. Jean-Luc had known Q as bored by and detached from everything, which was a character trait he found unbearable in anyone. He kept remembering Q’s eyes lit up with eagerness as he talked about changing the Continuum… it had been… attractive.

And that kiss… and that _kiss_ …

And the tumultuous desperation in Q’s being, and later the calm acceptance that he was probably going to die…

“ _Captain_ , are you _sure_ there’s nothing we need to discuss?!”

“I’m sorry, Counselor.” Picard didn’t even want to know what strange blend of emotions Deanna was getting from him. He felt ashamed of himself, brooding over private matters on the bridge when he was supposed to run his ship. And this _was_ a private matter. No need to get anyone else involved.

“I’ll be in my ready room,” he muttered and made a hasty retreat.

 

* * *

 

The worst thing, he thought as he sat down behind his desk, the worst thing was that there was nothing he could do to influence the situation. He never knew where Q was when he wasn’t visiting the Enterprise, and he hadn’t really thought about it before, but now… now he wished he had a way to find out. Where was the Continuum? Could it be reached? Was it even a physical place that mortals like Picard could get to?

He wished he knew. He was sure that if only he knew how to get there, he could contribute somehow. Q was out of place in battle – he was neither a strong diplomat, nor a very warlike person, nor had he ever seemed the type to lead people. He had always looked, to Picard, like an outsider, existing on the fringes of Q society and always one misstep away from expulsion. How he had become a revolutionary leader, Picard could only wonder. Anyway, omnipotent or not, Q wasn’t in his element. He needed someone with him who had experience with armed conflicts and with ending them. There was no way for Jean-Luc to know if Q had such a person with him.

And besides, it was his nature, when presented with a conflict, to immediately start searching for solutions. It came with being a Starfleet captain. But right here, right now, there was nothing he could do for the Q Continuum. And it ate away at him.

All he could do was sit here and hope for word from Q. He felt reminded of ancient Earth history, back when fighting had been, for some unfathomable reason, a gendered business. Men would enlist as soldiers in the service of their nation-states, leaving the women behind to bide their time until their lovers returned. Jean-Luc wasn’t even officially Q’s lover, and yet he found himself occupying a similar role… sitting here, playing the waiting game.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beverly is heeeere and doing some wonderful doctoring. Now she can reasonably claim to be the first doctor in starfleet to have patched up a space god
> 
> Blood, mention of torture and extremely fake alien biology in this one. Look, the shows repeatedly handwaved everything about how Q physiology works, compared to them I'm doing pretty good. Besides, since Q's not putting on a show here like he did for Janeway, I didn't really keep with the American Civil War Aesthetic. Picard gets to see things a little closer to how they really are, and can't make heads or tails of most of it bc he's missing the relevant Q Cultural References.
> 
> I'm drawing on all my old knowledge from my HBO War fandom days to make this a War Is Hell Fic. Leave me a comment if you think I'm doing okay!!

Weeks had gone by without a word from Q. Usually that would not be a long time to go without a Q visit, and Jean-Luc wouldn’t consider it a bad thing. But now Q’s absence set Jean-Luc on edge. Q had made a love confession, dammit. And then he had gone off to get himself shot. Picard felt robbed, if only robbed of the banter that would normally follow such a confession.

But sometimes, at night when he was alone, he admitted to himself that it was not another intellectual sparring match he longed for. Q’s confession had opened the door to so much more – perhaps to long, earnest conversations about feelings, revelations on the nature of the Continuum, more kissing – for a moment, until Q had slammed the door shut when he’d left to get himself shot.

_How dare he do this to me? When he gets back from wherever he is, I’ll put him in his place, that much is certain._

Picard was still distracted, his mind wandering whenever his duties didn’t keep him busy. He was more irritable by little things than usual. More than once, to his profound shame, he had found himself snapping at a crew member over some minor infraction. He still hadn’t told anyone the reason for his low mood, and his friends were getting worried. In the last week alone, he had already declined two invitations to poker night. This left him free to spend his evenings by himself in his quarters, brooding or trying in vain to read. He preferred it this way, in order to avoid questioning, but also because he hoped that Q would contact him again.

_Where is he? How could he possibly think that any of this was a good idea? To start a war? To leave like this?_

Deanna was watching him. He now had to avoid Ten Forward because when he had stepped in three days ago, he had caught her whispering with Guinan. Jean-Luc would have loved to ask for Guinan’s advice – but he couldn’t, not with Q involved. They hated each other.

_Where is he? Where in the_ putain de merde _universe is he?!_

Jean-Luc Picard wasn’t cut out for waiting. He resented every day without news. He had tried, with whatever means he had, to contact Q; he had spent entire evenings attempting to reach out with his mind and hoping that, through some telepathic subspace, Q could hear him. One night – and he wasn’t about to talk about this to anyone ever – he had tried folding his hands and kneeling. Of course it had been to no avail.

Out of pure boredom, and to do at least something, he had looked up the Cardassian Gul that Q had mentioned. Gul Madred had gone missing only a scant few days after Picard had been released from his clutches. Only months later, when everyone had already given up on him, Madred had returned, placed in his dreadful office as if he had never left. His hair had gone bone-white, his figure gaunt, but there had been no scars or signs of injury at all. According to the Cardassian medics, he was mostly silent, except for the occasional whimper, or when they placed a mirror in front of him – then he screamed and screamed and wouldn’t stop. Picard couldn’t bring himself to pity the man, but he did feel a chill at the thought of Q’s involvement. Q really did love him, that much was clear, and he was not a kind or gentle entity.

With time, he felt a certain numbness take over. There was nothing he could do, so something within him resigned and shut down. He did his job with his usual efficiency, he talked to friends, he still worried about Q, but he didn’t try to take action anymore. When the worries resurfaced in his mind, he found a way to push them aside.

So Jean-Luc was rather taken by surprise when one day he entered his ready room and found Q there, rifling through his cabinets.

For a moment, he just stared.

Then, “Q! What are you doing here?”

He hated how harsh it sounded the moment he said it.

“Going through your stuff,” Q responded, not bothering to turn around. Picard stood looking at his broad back. “Do you have any non-synthetic alcohol in here?”

Jean-Luc sighed and retrieved a bottle of his brother’s vintage from the highest shelf. He kept it there for special diplomatic occasions – people sometimes liked a little personal touch. Well, this was certainly a special occasion – perhaps even a diplomatic one, depending on Q’s mood _du jour_.

Q stopped him when he went to cross the room towards the replicator for wine glasses. “Don’t bother,” he said and snatched the bottle. He was doing all of this single-handedly with his left, as the right was somewhat awkwardly clutching his hip. He had to remove the cork with his teeth, following which he spat it unceremoniously across the room. So, Jean-Luc supposed, diplomacy was right out.

“How is the… conflict going?” he asked.

Q gave him a black look. “You mean the war?” He took a swig from the bottle. “Oh, this is weak sauce.”

“I’m sorry the wine isn’t to your liking,” Picard said softly, but with an edge.

“How long has it been since I last came here?” Q asked. “In your timeline?”

“About three weeks. I take it, for you it has… not been three weeks?”

“Longer.” Q took another sip of wine. “Things have been… turbulent.” Every small movements seemed to cause him some kind of pain. He looked wan in the face, perspiration pealing on his forehead. His hair was in disorder and he was wearing some sort of ratty uniform jacket, a striking difference from his usual prim and sparkling exterior. And he was still holding his side in that peculiar manner.

“Q, are you… alright?” Picard asked.

“Now that you mention it…” Q said with a pained grimace. When his hand left his side, it came away bloody.

“You’re injured!” Picard exclaimed, moving to Q’s side, herding him as gently as he could towards the couch. “You need to lie down.”

“I think it’s called ‘wounded’ when it’s war,” Q said helpfully. “What difference does it make if I’m standing up or not? I’ll be getting blood all over your couch.”

If Q was seriously worried about the ready room couch, the blood loss was getting to him. _Not so invincible after all, eh?_ Picard thought. He tapped his commbadge. “Picard to Crusher.”

Q coughed unhealthily. “I don’t think your little doctor can do anything about this.”

“It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” Picard said tersely. “I really don’t want you to bleed out on my couch.”

“I don’t know if there’s an _out_ component to this,” Q said faintly from the couch. “I’m not sure how being wounded works. Maybe I’ll just… bleed. Forever.”

“So this can’t actually kill you?”

“I’m… uncertain.”

Picard sighed through his nose and tapped his commbadge again. “Picard to Crusher, please report to my ready room, we have a medical emergency.”

As he waited for Beverly, unsure what to do while Q on the couch alternated between more ugly coughing and making short work of his wine, he spotted an object leaning against the wall that hadn’t been there when he had last checked. Q had to have brought it, as it was most probably some kind of weapon; it bore a very slight resemblance in shape to a phaser rifle, but sleeker, more… _alien_ in design.

“What is this?” he asked, picking it up.

“Put that down,” Q rasped. “Wouldn’t want to hurt yourself.”

“So it _is_ a weapon.”

“Yes. It doesn’t look it, but this is the sort of weapon that could kill a Q.” Picard felt awed, holding the thing in his hands. He had just about resigned himself to the assumption that he would never find any way to do real harm to Q – not that he wanted to, anymore, but… a tiny, ruthless part in him reflected on the current situation, having this entity who had tormented him for years in this room as he was holding a bona fide god-killer.

“I’m… surprised that a mortal could handle this thing,” he said.

“Truly,” Q replied with a lopsided smile, “and it’s with a heavy heart that I chose to bring it here. But I wouldn’t have if I didn’t trust you.”

Trust. The word settled heavily in Jean-Luc’s chest.

Before he could ponder the implications of being trusted by this creature currently bleeding on his sofa, Beverly entered. She was carrying a medkit and that facial expression she had on when no force in the universe could stop her from helping someone. Well, time to test her resolve.

“Jean-Luc, are you alright?” she asked.

“Yes. I’m not the medical emergency,” Picard said, gesturing towards the couch. “He is.”

“Q!?” Beverly recoiled the tiniest bit, but put a brave face on it. “Is this one of his jokes?”

“I’m afraid not,” Q said. He was growing paler by the minute.

“Would I play along with Q’s jokes?” Jean-Luc asked quietly. “I believe this is serious.” He watched as Beverly steeled herself, walked over to the couch and peeled away Q’s jacket and shirt to examine the wound.

She clicked her tongue. “This is from a projectile weapon. What have you been up to?”

Q’s eyes wavered from her to Jean-Luc. “You haven’t told anyone?” He seemed surprised.

“I saw no reason for airing the Continuum’s dirty laundry among my crew.” He kept the fact that his reasons had been largely personal to himself for the time being. Q just laughed.

Doctor Crusher shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Sickbay. Will the transporter pick you up if I tell them to beam us there?"

"No." Q raised his snapping hand in silent threat before she could touch her commbadge. "I'm not going anywhere."

"This room isn't exactly sterile."

Q grinned faintly. "Hey, it's me! Do you really think _I_ could get infected?"

"I didn't think you could bleed." Beverly took a tricorder from her medkit and scanned the wound. “There’s some sort of foreign… object in there. Is that supposed to be there?”

Q shook his head. Pain was making him grit his teeth. “Get it out.”

Beverly gave a tight little nod and got to work. Q made a sharp, high-pitched sound of pain.

Beverly paused and grabbed a hypospray. “If you’d like a sedative…”

“No. This is not a real human body. I have no idea what it would do. I cannot afford to be sedated right now. I have a revolution to lead."

Beverly shrugged and said something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “your funeral”.

Q winced. “Oh creation, I really hope you’re wrong.”

An excruciatingly long minute later, Beverly showed them the projectile she’d salvaged from the wound. It reminded Jean-Luc of the bullets he’d seen fired by historical weapons on the holodeck. Q shrugged it off.

“Parting gift from Q,” he muttered.

Beverly’s head rose. “Another Q did that to you?”

“He didn’t live to tell the tale,” Q said darkly.

Beverly cleared her throat. “The dermal regenerator isn’t working.”

“Of course it isn’t. And if it were, it wouldn’t matter. What you’re seeing here isn’t a wound to this human body I wear on occasion, it’s a representation of a wound to my essence. My native form, if you will. I thank you for removing the bullet but I’m afraid that’s all you can do for me, and in any case I really must be going—”

Q tried to rise from the couch, but sank back with a surprised little sound. He was very pale now. The two humans rushed to get him to settle.

“Just stay lying down,” Picard said, trying for soothing.

“Mm,” Q muttered. “Dizzy.”

“Well, the bleeding’s certainly having _some_ effect on you.”

“It’s all getting out of hand.” Q spat some more blood over the front of his shirt, which made Beverly look up in alarm. She scanned him again with her medical tricorder, or at least tried to.

“Dammit. My tricorder won’t pick you up as anything that makes sense. Are you experiencing any internal bleeding?”

Q seemed to mull it over. “That depends on your definition of _internal_ ,” he said.

“Well, have any of your organs been punctured?”

Q chuckled softly. “What organs?”

Beverly was frustrated. When she spoke, her voice was like steel. “There should not be blood coming out of your mouth. But there is anyway and I want to know why.”

Q shrugged faintly. “Drama?”

Beverly’s lips thinned. Picard, who had experience with that facial expression, took a step back.

“If you weren’t so obviously in real pain, I would think this was another one of your childish little pranks,” Doctor Crusher said in that voice she normally used to reprimand Wesley. Q, unimpressed, just coughed again. It turned into an ugly gurgling retching sound, and what emerged from Q’s mouth next was a slurry of red blood and smears of a startlingly, brilliantly white substance that glittered like galaxies.

“There’s particles of… this in the wound too,” Beverly said after checking quickly. “Q, what…?”

“I told you it’s all getting out of _hand_ ,” Q whined. “Not even the representation is functioning normally anymore. It’s the war… messes up the whole Continuum.”

“What war?” Beverly asked.

“These glittering things are parts of your, um… essence?” Jean-Luc asked. The starry-white substance fascinated him. He stretched out a hand to touch…

“No!” Q grasped his wrist. “Don’t touch that.” His breathing was labored. The wound in his side was still sluggishly pumping blood and little drowned stars onto the ready room couch.

“So you’re… losing control of your shapeshifting, is that what’s going on?”

Q groaned and rolled his eyes. “An exceedingly simplistic way to put it but _yes_ , that is roughly what’s going on.”

Picard scratched his head. “Hmm. What would happen if you lost control entirely? If you… manifested? Manifested your entire essence.”

Q put his hands together and then spread them out wide. _“Boom.”_

_“You’d blow up the ship?”_

“The ship, the planet you’re orbiting, this solar system. I shouldn’t have come here.”

“I _agree_ with you.” Beverly stood up. “Well, if it isn’t going to heal itself… we’ll do this the old-fashioned way. Jean-Luc, go replicate me some bandages.”

Jean-Luc paused. He was somehow reluctant to let go of Q’s hand. “Are you sure?”

“At the very least it’ll help keep all that… business inside of him. Oh, don’t look at me like that, you two… they do offer courses in Starfleet medical on old-fashioned low-tech first aid. As doctors we must always expect to get into a situation where there’s no medkits on hand or… or our patient is an alien entity with glitter for blood who dermal regenerators won’t work on. Now get replicating!”

Jean-Luc got replicating.

 

* * *

 

As Beverly bandaged him, Q lay limply, his eyes half-closed, voiced his consternation about being wrapped up like a package and chattered on about the war. It had been going on for a while now. Neither side was anywhere close to overpowering the other at the moment. The Continuum was fraying at the edges, becoming unstable, that was why Q was here being bandaged by a mortal Starfleet doctor and not out there healing himself. Others were worse off, he said. Recently he had seen people hurt, maimed or killed whom he had known for billions of years, people who had seemed like permanent fixtures in an ever-changing universe, people who didn’t just get hurt or _go away_ – except now they _did_. “Good people,” Q said, the blood-loss making him slur, “good people and good Q. Far better ‘n myself.” He groaned deeply, either out of pain over his lost comrades or because he was physically hurting. “I’m telling myself that we’re doing this for Quinn, but Quinn wouldn’t’ve wanted this. Quinn would’ve hated this. He was such a bleedin’-heart hippie, always.”

Beverly leaned back, surveying her handiwork. “All set.”

Q attempted to get up again. “I’d best be going, then.”

“You’re going nowhere, Q,” Jean-Luc said sternly. It wasn’t an order as much as it was a fact. For all his omnipotence, Q couldn’t even cross the room at present.

Q raised two placating hands. “Well… as my captain commands…”

“Why did you even come here in the first place?” Make no mistake, Picard was glad to see Q again, after all these weeks of waiting for him to show. But he would’ve preferred their reunion to be different.

Q drew a deep, rasping breath. “Isn’t it… painfully obvious? I came here because I…”

He was interrupted by a sudden, flashing light and the subsequent appearance of a young woman wearing a ragged uniform and wielding a rifle similar to Q’s. Everyone in the room jumped.

“Q!” said Q.

“Amanda,” the two humans breathed in relief.

The Q once known as Amanda Rogers gave a sloppy half-salute. “Captain, Doctor,” she said, nodding at them as she crossed the room to stand at Q’s side. “Somehow I knew I could find you here. And you know that if I can find you, so can they.”

“Then what brings you here, too?” Q replied testily. “I _said_ no one follows me, it’s too great a risk.”

“I’ve got news from Q. He’s discovered that we have a mole in his camp.”

Q huffed. “I currently have three moles in his camp, which one did he catch?”

“It’s Q.”

_“Shit.”_ Q sighed. “I assume xe's dead now?”

Amanda dragged a hand through her disheveled hair. “I’m so sorry.”

“Well, you said your part, now you should get back,” Q replied. “I want you to go find Q, tell him to take you and three others he can trust and head for the Aegis nebula. Once you’re there, you’ll find—”

There was a second flash of light.

The Q that materialized now was a stranger, tall, pale and blonde with an even more proud and unforgiving face than the one Q had put on in the Farpoint trials. In stark contrast to Q and Amanda’s torn and faded blue jackets, he wore some sort of bright plated armor that covered his whole body, with a flashy silver badge pinned to his chest. The stranger carried a rifle like Q’s, and immediately trained it on the couch.

“Ah, Q,” said the stranger. “I knew I’d find you here.”

“Amanda,” Q hissed, issuing an unspoken order with a meaningful wave of his hand. Suddenly Amanda stood shielding the two mortals, a weapon of her own in her hands. Picard wanted to push past her because Q was in no state to take on the stranger, he was hurt, defenseless, and Picard had to _do something_. But somehow Amanda’s willowy frame was surprisingly hard to get past.

Then Q, drawing on some hidden reserve of strength, got himself up from the couch and gave the stranger a hefty punch to the face. Something followed that Jean-Luc’s eyes only picked up as…

…confusion…

…there was something more abstract going on than two men grappling, and Jean-Luc’s human brain could barely comprehend it or translate it into something comprehensible. It happened in a matter of seconds. For a moment it looked like Q was thrusting his hands _into_ the stranger’s chest…

…except his hands weren’t hands…

…and there was that shimmering starlight glow again, tendrils of it…

…then another flash of light…

…and the stranger sank to the floor, lifeless. Q dropped to his knees in front of him, removing the pompous little badge from the stranger’s pompous breastplate. The badge shimmered. It had a shape Picard didn’t recognize at first but was, when he looked harder, nothing but a heavily stylized letter Q. Q and Amanda were wearing a more simplistic, stitched-on version of it on the sleeves of their uniforms.

Q took something out from under his shirt – it was a thin leather band he had been wearing around his neck. Attached to it as gruesome pendants were five more silver pins. Q now added a sixth. _Trophies,_ Picard realized. _Five, no, six dead Q. Six entities previously thought to be immortal._

“The conservative faction are all wearing these,” Q explained. He looked down at the other Q with disgust. “Overconfident. They all are.”

Amanda went to stand beside him, and the two humans found themselves free to move again. Beverly, tricorder at the ready, approached the little cluster of Q. Jean-Luc, for better or worse, followed her.

“Is he dead?” Beverly asked, pointing at the prone Q on the floor.

“Yes,” Q said simply, “quite dead. His essence has been terminated. This body is nothing but a faint residue and should dissolve shortly.” And indeed, the body was beginning to shimmer faintly. The faint glow turned brighter and brighter and at last… ebbed away. The clothes, the body, all was gone… but the little silver bauble on Q’s necklace remained.

“Would that happen to you,” Jean-Luc inquired, “if you died?”

“Of course.” Q got up from the floor, supported by Amanda. “Why do you ask?”

“The thought doesn’t appeal,” Picard admitted. “You aren’t meant to just… disappear like that. Leaving nothing to mourn.”

Q was still visibly in pain, but his eyes started glowing warmly. “Would you? Mourn me? If I was gone?”

Again he looked so overjoyed. Like he hadn’t thought it possible that Picard would even acknowledge his death with more than a passing thought. And yet, Picard wondered, could he stand here and say it, say everything he’d wanted to say in these past few weeks, here in his ready room, in front of Beverly Crusher, who probably still fantasized about making it work with him…?

Jean-Luc straightened his back and looked into Q’s eyes, pretending for a second there was nothing in the room but them. “Yes,” he said simply.

“Yes,” Q breathed. The entirety of him was practically glowing now. He took Jean-Luc’s hands in his.

Amanda cleared her throat, disturbing the moment. “I know what you're thinking and you're being unfair. We'd also mourn in the Continuum. You’re important to us. We need you right now. Everyone says so. Everyone says you’re carrying _it_.”

Q heaved a weary sigh and turned to face her, releasing Picard’s hands. “Child,” Q said, “I barely have _it_. I have only the vaguest idea of what _it_ is. Quinn had _it_ , but he was so bent on getting himself killed. He tried to pass _it_ on to me, but judging from the situation right now, he did a subpar job of it.”

“I’m afraid you lost me,” said Picard. “What is _it?”_

“ _It_ is the _idea_ ,” Q said, gesturing in exasperation. “The plan. The way out of stagnation and to progress. They think it’s some magical gift. That I’ve got it all figured out. All I did was step up and say ‘hey, maybe we should change some things so that we’d all be happier’.”

Picard couldn’t help it, he gaped. “Are you telling me you don’t have a _plan_ for after the war? You just started this conflict in which Q are dying, with only a vague notion of what it’s all for?!”

“You don’t have to tell me that my people are dying,” Q hissed. “This is my family you’re talking about. Six of them I’ve had to kill myself or they would’ve killed me. And I never meant for all of this to happen! All I did was propose some changes! I didn’t expect to be shot at.”

Jean-Luc didn’t know what to say. “Look… I’m sorry…”

“No, it’s fine. I know I’m probably messing things up, but… I’ve got to see it through. I’ll be seeing you, hopefully…” He raised his hand to snap.

“Hold on. You can’t go. You’re still injured!”

“And I wish I could sit back and recover in your riveting company. But every Q in the known universe is looking for me right now for some reason or another. Two of them have already found me. I’m not going to draw any more attention to your little ship.” He gestured at Amanda. “Get us out of here, kid.”

“Wait. Don’t go just yet.” Jean-Luc couldn’t believe he was saying this, to Q of all people. His voice sounded foreign in his ears. “At least… at least say goodbye properly.”

“Before I head out into the meat grinder again, you mean?” Jean-Luc wasn’t sure he liked this new, even more cynical Q. Before he could make a comment, Q leaned in and gave him a soft peck on the cheek. There were two audible gasps from the women in the room.

“Goodbye,” Q breathed.

Jean-Luc grabbed him before he could withdraw. “You call that a proper farewell?”

Q gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod into Beverly’s direction. “ _Pas devant madame la docteur_ ,” he said.

“Nonsense,” Jean-Luc replied. He would talk to Doctor Crusher later. Perhaps it was time to brief at least some of his crew on the present situation, even if it meant having to talk about his feelings. But for now, he felt brazen and reckless and perhaps he only ever had this moment with Q. So he drew the entity in and kissed him, _properly_.

Q responded in kind, wrapping his arms around Jean-Luc perhaps out of sentiment, perhaps because he was still losing blood and therefore wobbly on his feet. Probably a bit of both. The kiss deepened, Jean-Luc felt Q’s tongue slide into his mouth, and then…

He got the strange feeling of something very gently brushing against his brain, a feathery, barely-there touch. There was a… a presence there, gently nudging his conscious mind.

_“?”_ said the presence.

And it was Q, of course, what else would it be? Maybe, Picard thought, what was happening right now was something like the Vulcan mindmeld that he had experienced with Ambassador Sarek or his son…

He tried to open his mind to Q as he had to Sarek and Spock back then. But as soon as he tried to bring it into focus, he got a feeling from Q like walls sliding apart and away and revealing… magnitudes.

This presence pushing softly against his mind was so immense, so large and dense and powerful and old that Picard was again barely able to comprehend it. This presence could invade him, fill him, eclipse him, devour him and still reach on forever. If he tried to take it all in, he would go insane.

For a moment, deep in his heart, there was a flutter of pure panic. _This is not the Borg Collective,_ he told himself. Q’s intentions with him were different, had always been different. Q would not harm him – a part of him had known that for a long time. And even if he were to reach into Q and discover the part of him that undoubtedly resounded with the song of the Continuum, it would still be… different.

And, completely unlike with the Borg, there was an impulse there in Jean-Luc almost like a hunger, an eagerness to burrow his little human mind into all this vastness, burrow deeper and deeper inside until he finally knew this entity like he knew himself.

He heard laughter in his mind, not the mocking kind, but a mirthful, affectionate variety. _Maybe later,_ Q said to him. _If there is a later._

They separated – first their minds, then their lips.

“What’s the matter, Q?” Picard asked. “You’re not one to pull back from something like this.”

“Not normally, but this place is a mess,” Q said with a wry little laugh, tapping his temple. “When the war’s over, once I’ve cleaned up here, we can… revisit this. Right now it’s not safe.”

Picard nodded. “I see.”

Q sighed and stepped back. “I should really be getting back now.”

“What if you stayed?” Jean-Luc found himself asking, to his own considerable surprise. “You can make time stop, can’t you? You could stay here and get some rest.”

“Ah, but I’m somewhat limited in my capabilities now that there’s a war on. No, I cannot halt the linear flow of time at present. I've already been gone too long.”

“Well, then.” He had earlier bemoaned his lack of a speech. But now that Q stood right in front of him, what was there to say, really? He gripped the entity’s arms. “Come back alive.”

“I will endeavor to. Come on, Amanda-Q…”

With the customary noise and light, the two Q departed, leaving the two humans alone.

“Jean-Luc…” Beverly said very carefully, “what just happened?”

_She thinks he forced me to kiss him,_ Jean-Luc realized. _That’s why she’s not affronted._

“Doctor…” he said, “Beverly. Do you trust my judgement?”

That one sentence was all it took. Beverly’s face went from vaguely worried to outright shocked. “Are you trying to say that he didn’t… that you… you… and _him?”_

“I’m considering it,” Picard admitted.

In Beverly’s eyes, something froze. “How long have you two been… considering?”

“It started when he contacted me three weeks ago. I have not… committed to anything, or made him any promises other than that I’d… consider things once he was finished with his war.”

“Three weeks? And when were you going to inform the crew of this?”

Picard tried to straighten his back even more. “Once it became an issue of ship security, Doctor.”

Beverly crossed her arms. “Well, it has now, hasn’t it. Your… Q killed another Q aboard this ship, and I keep hearing about some kind of war happening. At least inform the senior staff. And Starfleet Command, I’m assuming you haven’t contacted them either?”

Picard sighed and tapped his commbadge. This day was getting more difficult by the minute. “All senior officers please report to the observation lounge…”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gosh it's been a while, huh? In fact it's been so long that I really don't know what I was thinking when I was writing most of this chapter. But here it is anyway. 
> 
> Set a few hours after the events of the last chapter. There be swordfighting.

It had been a long day filled with frustrations, Picard thought as he practically fell into bed.

Beverly and a medical team had removed the stains of blood and glittery particles from his ready room, and although something within him had shuddered in revulsion at the very thought, he had permitted the xenobiology department to extract a sample for their lab. Starfleet Command would no doubt be pleased that the Enterprise had managed to obtain a sample of a Q’s essence and was currently studying it. Picard had made a pointed mention of it in his log.

Oh yes, he had made a log, finally, detailing as much as he knew about the Q civil war. If he had omitted a few very nearly irrelevant facts of a personal nature, well, some little lies of omission in a report to Command was something every Captain in the field got used to very quickly. The briefing with the senior staff had been more difficult, because in that case he hadn’t been able to omit anything.

He knew that he had shocked his friends. Only Data had voiced his support without a moment’s hesitation. Deanna had just looked thoughtful. But all the others had been unsettled and, naturally, had suspected foul play. It had taken all of Picard’s famed diplomacy to make it through the meeting at all. Now, alone in his quarters with the day done at last, he just wanted to curl up and sleep. Of course he dutifully made himself go through all his evening ablutions first – it wouldn’t do for a Starfleet Captain to get sloppy and sleep in his uniform and forget to brush his teeth. No one but himself would ever know but… still. It was a matter of principle. If he started letting tiny things slide, it opened the door to letting bigger things slide.

Asleep at last, he dreamed he was at home in La Barre. He stood watching his mother as she prepared tea, listening to the happy clatter of cups on saucers that dredged up childhood memories. His love for tea had carried over from her.

“Jean-Luc, I’ve cause to worry about you,” Yvette Picard said, still busy with her fine silver tea set. “I heard you’ve taken up with some sort of god-entity from outer space.”

It didn’t strike Dream-Picard as odd that his mother would know this, or that she was indeed still alive. “It’s all going to get sorted out, maman.”

“I hope so,” maman said with a sigh. “But I can’t say I’m surprised. I know my boys… I knew Robert would take up with a nice girl from around town, and you, Jean-Luc, would need nothing short of an actual angel to make you happy.”

Picard couldn’t help but squirm a bit. He knew he was… difficult, but that much? “He’s not exactly an angel, maman.”

“Oh, what difference does it make? Here, have some tea.”

What she gave him was not one of her china cups, but a mug that looked exactly like the ones from the Enterprise’s replicator.

“Ah,” he said, looking down at it. “Tea, earl grey, hot.”

“You could drink it out on the terrace, dear, although there is some dreadful confusion out there, I’m afraid.”

_This is a dream,_ Picard realized as he walked past his mother towards the door, tea in hand. The kitchen door did not connect to the dining room as per usual, but led directly to the back garden. And it wasn’t exactly the back garden anymore.

He was looking out at some kind of muddy field, the debris of battle scattered all about. The breeze brought the distant sounds of screams and detonations and metal against metal. On the horizon, flames. And in the middle of it all stood the willow tree from the garden in La Barre, the same tree Jean-Luc remembered sitting under as a kid with a book. It stuck out like a sore thumb.

Suddenly three figures came running into his field of vision, scrambling to take cover behind the solitary tree. The noise of detonations was hot on their heels, the ground shook, the earth erupted in little bursts of dirt and Jean-Luc realized that the area was being shelled. He wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of the shells hitting him: he knew that he was in a dream.

The three didn’t stay squatting behind the tree for long. Shells were hurtling in their direction with alarming speed, and the low-hanging branches of the willow obscured them from view, but offered very little protection. They were driven away fairly quickly, skidding between explosions; one of them tripped in the mud and had to be hauled along by her comrades, an agonizing scene for Jean-Luc to watch. At last, the three tumbled into a ditch not far from his vantage point. The three were Q – Jean-Luc recognized their jackets with their shoulder patches, and the rifles that he, in the privacy of his head, still called _god-killers_. Although he had perhaps never seen Qs less godlike – the three were covered in grime, exhausted and hunted by others of their kind. Jean-Luc blinked and was in the ditch with them.

One of the Q peered outside, his rifle at the ready. The one who had slipped earlier was collapsed on the floor, panting heavily. The third went over and patted her shoulder. “Alright?” he asked, short of breath himself. It was Q, Jean-Luc’s Q. He’d recognize that voice anywhere – so rich and dark with a sharp edge, like chili-flaked chocolate, at one moment, but sounding like a startled duck the next. Right now he had a lot of the startled duck about him. He and his compatriots were also filthy – the nice, clean bandages that Beverly had put on Q not half a day ago were already grimy and stained crimson. Jean-Luc wondered how much time had passed since then, for Q. The other Q, the one who had fallen, was also bleeding from a cut on her forehead. Q tutted and raised his hand to snap.

“No, don’t,” said the injured Q. “Save it. I’ll be fine.”

“You won’t heal at your normal speed,” Q said, in the tone of a weary, oft-repeated reminder. “It’s all getting… less.”

“Power’s drying up on both sides,” muttered the Q on the look-out. “It’s all breaking down now.”

“I still have most of mine left,” Q said. “Now let me take care of that cut.”

“No.” The injured Q took a shuddering breath. “You carry _it_. You have to save up. You’ve got to live.”

“Don’t make it weird.” Q turned away and started cleaning his gun. More shells erupted in the distance.

“How is it?” he asked the sentry Q.

“All clear for the moment.”

“Suppose they have to reload sometime.” Q laughed completely humorlessly.

For a second, there was silence.

Then the sentry said, “Guys, what the hell are we doing here?”

“I’m cleaning this rifle and Q’s bleeding, what are _you_ doing?”

“Look, we’re supposed to be so intellectually superior to all those dumb mortals having wars, right? And now? Look at us! Those are some of my best friends out there, shelling the crap out of us. What are we _doing_ here?”

“You should keep an eye on the terrain, not wax philosophical.”

“Oh yeah? Not too long ago, _you_ were considered a clown whom the important Q just tried to ignore. But then everything’s changed so much and now there’s talk that you can save us.”

Q frowned down at his rifle. “If you don’t like me, go join Q instead.”

“I like Q even less. Don’t worry about me. But tell me, why are you doing this? Really? Do you really have some kind of grand vision? Do you really want to reform the Continuum? Or are you just in it because of that mortal?”

Q sighed. “What mortal?”

“You know. That human. The one you made first contact with.”

“Jean-Luc.” Unseen by the others in the ditch, Picard shivered at the overwhelming fondness in Q’s voice as he said his name. “I do care for him, I’ve never made a secret of it. But I fail to see how he fits into here.”

The sentry shrugged. “They wouldn’t let you date him, would they? But if you won this, if you came out on top after this war, you could do whatever you want.”

The injured Q took another strained breath and said, “Q, stop it. Let’s not accuse one another…”

“I’m just trying to do right by Quinn,” Q said, putting his rifle down into his lap.

That kept the sentry Q quiet for two entire seconds. Then he said, “They say you were with him when he died.”

“I was there, yes.”

“How was it?” The other Q talked about it as if it were some historic event of great importance that Q had witnessed.

Q rolled his eyes at the sentry’s back. “It was not very nice,” he said.

“Oh, right. You two were, um… involved.”

“That was a long time ago,” Q said softly. “Before he got so weird about dying.”

The injured Q gave a dreamy sigh. “You loved him!”

Q said nothing.

“Like you love that mortal?”

“No. Differently.”

The sentry turned his head in something like vague interest. “What do you mean, _differently?_ More? Less?”

Q shook his head. “Just differently. You don’t ever really love two people the same. Now, shouldn’t you be looking out there?”

The sentry turned back around.

“See anything?” Q asked.

“Oh, shit…”

Those were to be the sentry’s last words. He tumbled into the ditch and almost fell on the other two Q, his eyes already wide and unseeing. A newcomer stood over him, over them all, and pulled a blade out of his body.

“Oh, Q,” said Q, disdainfully. “Are we _hacking_ each other up now?”

The newcomer shrugged and wiped the blood off his blade. He had taken the form of a stocky human male, covered in grime just like the two, formerly three, in the ditch, but somehow his silver brooch still shone. His eyes were wide and white in his mud-streaked face. “Power’s draining,” he said, his voice way too casual for someone who had just killed a person. “You know that. Gotta make do.”

“Fine,” Q said, “Have it your way.”

In his dreamscape, Jean-Luc found himself staring at the back of Q’s head. He’d had a brief taste of Q’s mind, that afternoon that felt so long ago now. It had been nothing more than a minute, but apparently a minute was enough to bring him here in his sleep. And it was enough to know things, certain things that Q was knowing.

Picard knew intimately that Q still had a lot of his powers left, not _most_ as he had claimed earlier, but enough, and that, yes, there was a more and a less to this. Q powers were nearly infinite but really only nearly. In any other situation, that would’ve been a comfort.

He also heard Q think, _A sword…_

In truth, what appeared in Q’s hand was more of a rapier, and what his challenger had was actually a cutlass. But it appeared the moment he thought it up, easy as that. Thought to reality.

Picard also knew that, for all of Q’s astronomical self-confidence, he’d never fought anyone like this before. Q was, as Jean-Luc had rightly noted years ago, a showman. He probably knew about stage-fencing, but not about the real deal. Picard, on the other hand, had been fencing professionally for decades.

He flew up to Q and then nudged him at the opportune moment, allowing him to parry just barely in time. He felt Q’s surprise, but there was no time to stop and explain things.

Q fought with his left, which was a mild irritant to Picard, but he couldn’t afford to let that distract him. Somehow he was able to nudge Q with his mind again.

_Your opponent keeps targeting your right side_ , he thought at him.

_And?!_ Q thought back. Even his mental voice was decidedly on the side of startled duck now.

_He knows you’re injured there,_ Picard told him, trying to remain calm for both of them. _He’s trying to make you worry, and contort yourself while you’re at it. Ah, here he comes. Parry! Neuvieme!_

Q clumsily dodged instead. It was perhaps the first time Jean-Luc had seen him be any way other than languidly graceful.

_Oh, for god’s sake. Give me control._ Somehow he knew that he could influence this… vision, dream world, whatever, exclusively through Q.

_What?_ Q snapped.

_At least do what I say if you want to live._

There was a general vibe of grudging concession from Q.

_Wonderful. Now I want you to parry – properly – recover and then try a Compound-Riposte._

Q huffed. _If I could walk this way…_

_You have no idea what I’m talking about._

But somehow through their mental connection, they built between them an understanding as the blades clashed. Q was a horrid fighter, but a quick study, and soon he almost seamlessly had his body do what Jean-Luc thought the moment he thought it. Thought to reality, just like that.

_Beat Parry. Now let’s worry him a little. Advance-Lunge, go for his legs, his footwork is worse than ours. You’re doing well for a beginner!_

**_You’re_** _doing well,_ Q sniffed. _What a martial hobby for a human who claims to be peace-loving._

_My martial hobby is saving your arse right now. Cross forward. Watch your feet. This is an illegal move…_

_Oh, you cad!_

_…but we’re not in a fencing match on the holodeck. Our opponent is out to kill you._

_Only you would bother justifying the use of an illegal fencing move in the middle of a war. Reason why I love you._ Q dove into his opponent’s personal space, dropped his rapier, gripped the other Q’s wrist and twisted it until his limp fingers released that silly cutlass. “Alright, Q,” he said out loud, “you had your little playtime. Enough swords for today. This is a gun…” He pressed it almost gently to the other Q’s temple.

The other Q blanched. He was sweating, his eyes roving in their sockets.

“Now,” said Q, “you can answer some questions if you want to live. Where did you come from? Was Q there? How many were with him? Where will they strike next? You have three seconds, three, two, one? Too slow!” He pistol-whipped the other Q into unconsciousness. Picard was a bit shocked by the sheer brute force of it.

“Q! Why did you do that?”

“I have no time for him being conscious right now.” Q snapped his fingers. Jean-Luc felt no change, but somehow he knew that now he was as visible and tangible as if he were really, bodily in this place. Q grabbing him by the shoulders with his usual enthusiasm was a definite indication.

“You did great!” he said, beaming.

“Is this your mortal?” asked a faint voice. It came from the injured Q who had rested, half-forgotten, precariously near the fight. She looked barely conscious, the cut on her forehead still bleeding.

“My hero!” Q enthused.

The injured Q propped herself up on her elbows. “And where did your hero come from?”

“I’m in a dream,” Picard explained.

“That doesn’t make sense.” Q frowned. “You shouldn’t be able to contact me, especially not while dreaming?”

“ _You_ wanted a connection to my mind so badly.” Picard shrugged. “Now there you have it.”

“It wasn’t supposed to go like this! I’m sorry. The instability and all… I shouldn’t have attempted to merge with you back on your little ship. Now I’ve created a link between our minds by accident.”

“Then it was a happy accident,” Picard decided.

“You realize this is going to have consequences?” It didn’t bother Picard as much as it maybe should that some of the old patronizing tone was back in Q’s voice. “Have you noticed any other changes since that time we linked minds?”

“Not yet. It’s the same day,” Picard explained. “I take it it’s been… longer for you again.”

“Plenty longer.” Q sighed and raised a hand, fingers poised to snap. “Anyway, let’s get you back.”

Picard grabbed his arm. “Will you be alright here?”

Q patted him soothingly. “There is nothing you can do, my cherished mortal sunflower. It’s been good to see you but you must simply get back to your ship now.”

“Hold on a minute – _cherished mortal–?”_

He opened his eyes. He hadn’t been aware that he had closed them.

He was in his bed, on the Enterprise. According to his alarm clock, it was almost time to get up too. 

 

* * *

 

The dream never repeated itself in that form. He was never brought into the Continuum again; perhaps Q was doing something to prevent it. But there was no doubt that the mental link between them persisted. He still dreamed, of course, and often saw confusing snatches of the Continuum again as if through Q’s eyes. He saw skirmishes and hard-won battles and desperate last stands and more of that bright substance like starstuff. He saw a lot of blood. When these visions started insinuating themselves into his waking mind, as sudden flashes of somewhere else that left him shaken and vaguely disoriented, Jean-Luc considered relinquishing his command for a while. Some of his crew were already giving him weird looks over the whole Q thing, especially Commander Riker. But as long as he was able to carry out his duties, he would. And if Will or anyone else had a problem with him, Jean-Luc made it clear that they could come forward and discuss it with him at any time. So far, no one had. It seemed as though they were biding their time, seeing what would happen. That they were waiting to see how their captain would handle the situation was perhaps a sign of their trust in his capabilities – at least Picard got that feeling from them.

Q sent letters from the front, out of some quaint sense of romance. Sometimes, mostly late in the evening, lines of text would pop up on the desk monitor in Picard’s quarters, penned in a golden, swooping font, where they would stay exactly as long as Picard needed to read them. Then they’d disappear, leaving him with a slightly unsettling feeling of unreality.

The places and events Q wrote about were completely alien to Picard, and all the people in his stories were named Q. Still, it was nice to hear from Q at all. The gist of the messages seemed to be that the war drew on and on, Q were dying, and nothing changed. The Continuum was becoming more unstable, and the very fabric of reality, if Q could be believed, was beginning to quake. Q began turning his mind to other possible solutions to the conflict. Often, to Picard’s surprise, his thoughts strayed to humanity. Not just to Picard, his own special designated human, but to the species in general. Jean-Luc was surprised to discover in the letters a deep-seated fondness, almost love, for humans that Q had apparently done his utmost to not let him see before.

It was not paternal or even so much condescending. That Picard would have expected. But Q wrote of humans with something astonishingly like respect and actual unironic praise. He wrote of the fine qualities of humanity as being empathy, compassion, all things he felt the Q lacked. He wrote about his desire to reintroduce these traits to his people. Not that the Q had always been lacking them, they had just… unlearned them.

_I could use a human,_ he wrote in a tone that felt like musing. _I know what you’re thinking and no, not you, my dear. The logistics don’t appeal, and this isn’t something I’d want to put you through… But I have someone else in mind…_

Then all communication ceased abruptly for a while.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It has been a while, huh? Yeah I got sucked into a completely different fandom again. But I am finishing this! There is going to be a small-ish epilogue after this one but yeah, we're pretty much wrapping up here. Put your hands together for Deanna Troi, who was actually the true hero of this story all along! 
> 
> Idk why Worf is on the Enterprise, let's just pretend I've never seen DS9 and have no idea that he transfers byyeeee

Q came back in the middle of the night. He did it quietly, without having announced himself. One night he was just there, disturbing Picard’s sleep as he climbed into bed with him. Not a word was spoken as he slipped under the covers and nestled against Picard’s side.

“Q?” Picard asked, his voice still rough with sleep. “You’re back? What’s going on?”

“It’s over,” Q whispered into the darkness of the bedroom.

That brought Picard to full alertness. “The war is over?”

“We have a ceasefire.”

Jean-Luc tried to sit up, but was hindered by the weight of Q atop of him, keeping him down. “Tell me what happened. Did you do this? Did you stop the fighting?”

“I had help.”

“Who…?”

“Shhh.” Q stilled him with a gentle touch to his lips. “Not now. You should be sleeping. Even I should be sleeping.”

“You? You don’t need sleep.”

“I could sleep. War’s exhausting. I could sleep right now.”

“Well, I won’t argue that,” Picard said. “But we’ll talk in the morning, alright?”

There was no answer from Q, who had already apparently fallen asleep pressed against Picard’s back. His eyes were closed, his breathing was slow and deep, so Picard assumed that he was genuinely sleeping. It was odd for Q, who had in the past claimed to hate sleep, but these were unusual circumstances.

Jean-Luc went back to sleep himself. He was certain that if Q wanted anything, he would wake him.

When the alarm went off in the morning, Jean-Luc found Q in much the same position he’d left him in. He had sprawled out a bit, his larger body now taking up most of the bed. His mouth hung open in an extremely dorky fashion. Jean-Luc was sure that this was not a pretense – Q wouldn’t be caught dead in such an undignified position. He gave the entity a few tentative pokes – there was another makeshift bandage on his shoulder, indicating that Q had managed to get himself wounded _again_ – but Q just made a noise and turned away, remaining asleep.

He had to be on the bridge in less than half an hour, so Jean-Luc let it be for now. He got himself some breakfast and prepared for the day. When he left his quarters to start his shift, he expected that, when he would return in the evening, he’d find Q either awake or gone.

Later he found Q in almost the exact same position he had left him in.

He had very little experience with waking up his bedmates, but he tried. When poked again, Q muttered something, pressed his face into the pillow and tried to swat at Picard’s hand. And that seemed to be it.

Picard scratched his head. He tried again, softly shaking Q’s uninjured shoulder. “Q? Wake up.”

Q cracked an eye open and stared balefully. “Lea’ me ‘lone,” he muttered.

“What is happening with you?” Picard asked him. “You hate sleep.”

“I’m _tired_ , Picard.”

“I don’t think you are. I don’t think that’s how you work. I’m assuming there is something, or perhaps a lot of things, that you’re currently avoiding to deal with. And you prefer unconsciousness to getting up and facing these things.”

Q somehow managed to roll his one open eye. “Have I not faced enough things lately? Let me be.”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to get up eventually.”

Q made an extremely rude sound, then turned away and buried his face in the pillow again. Picard sighed and settled in next to him.

 

* * *

 

He let a few days of this pass, in order to give Q the space he needed, but eventually Jean-Luc called in another meeting of the senior staff. It was high time he told them that his quarters now had a sleepy entity as a somewhat permanent fixture.

“And he does nothing at all?” Deanna asked.

“He wakes up periodically to stare at the wall for a stretch of time. Sometimes he sits up.”

“And then?”

“He stares at the other wall,” Picard said grimly.

“He doesn’t communicate?”

“Rarely and in monosyllables. Two days ago was the last time he spoke a complete sentence to me.”

“Weird,” said Geordi. “Remember what a fuss he made about sleeping that one time when he was human?”

“Isn’t it a bit strange to just have Q in your bed? All the time?” That was Riker.

“Really, Number One,” Picard chided.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Seeing as the behavior you described is markedly different from the type of behavior Q naturally exhibits,” said Data, “there is cause for concern, is there not?”

It only surprised Picard for about a second. Then he remembered that Data, who approached anything completely without bias, had a more amiable relationship with Q than anyone else on the ship perhaps (but only perhaps) excluding the Captain himself. He had gotten along quite well with Q that one time Q had been human, and seemed to think of him as a friend. Data seemed to see a potential for friendship in anyone.

“Data is right,” Deanna said. “Maybe I should see him?”

“I don’t think he’d appreciate that.” Picard sighed.

“Well,” said Riker, “What do you intend to do about this whole… situation?”

Picard shrugged. “I called this meeting because I felt it necessary to inform you that Q is aboard the ship. What I’m going to do about the state he’s in is my personal concern. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think he’ll do any harm to us while he is here.”

Riker thoughtfully stroked his beard. “Hmm, sir, if he has PTSD, he might… spin out on us. Cause some sort of… interdimensional freak accident.”

There was something of a subdued grumble from Worf, who had remained silent thus far.

“Yes, Mr. Worf, if you’d like to share some insight,” Picard prompted.

“With all due respect, Commander,” Worf said, turning to Riker, “We should not talk lightly of scars sustained in battle, be they external or internal. They prove the worth of the warrior, in both cases.”

Picard raised an eyebrow. He’d never heard Worf utter one good word about Q. But now that Q had done something Worf could relate to, perhaps that would change. Stranger things had happened.

He returned to his quarters to find Q, still burrowed under all of Picard’s blankets, his eyes still fixed on the wall. If his face expressed any emotion, it was a kind of mute astonishment.

“I wish I could see what you see,” Picard said. “I wish I could know what you’re thinking.”

Could he? He wasn’t sure. He’d felt a connection to Q’s mind ever since that moment in the ready room. Snatches of Q’s thoughts, experiences, feelings had periodically flashed into his mind, but now there was nothing of the sort happening. If their connection was still present, it seemed dulled, muted. Just like everything about Q since he had returned.

If he was perfectly honest, in all these long nights of waiting, Jean-Luc had been entertaining the thought of exploring this connection to Q further. He had a lot of interactions with telepaths under his belt, but this brief touching of the minds had been unlike any of them. It hadn’t been like interacting with a Betazoid, who serenely read your thoughts without you noticing a thing. It hadn’t been like the flowing into each other that came with a Vulcan mindmeld. It had been nothing like the Borg, pushing in and subjugating, silencing, invading. Q had just… nudged him. It had felt like… like a natural extension of a kiss, for Q. Like he’d automatically tried to initiate some sort of Q intimacies, only to falter at the different mind of his companion. And Jean-Luc couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d seen… what he’d felt.

There had been a… hunger in him that he hadn’t known from any previous telepathic contact, a longing to explore the vastness that Q had offered to him, to fall into the infinity that was Q’s consciousness, to merge, to touch, to feel, to change and be changed by it. It had almost had the makings of a sexual desire. Fine, Picard admitted to himself, it _had_ the makings of a sexual desire. In the long, lonely nights, he had sometimes imagined sharing in Q’s mind again, and just recalling the slight nudge he had gotten, and dreaming up the fantasy of more of the same, of a more deep and thorough union, had sent a shock of liquid heat through his whole body. He’d often had to bring himself off on those nights, quick and hot and feeling perplexed that the fantasy of a telepathic union with a hivemind alien now got him so hard and wanting.

So now, while above all he was worried about Q, Jean-Luc couldn’t help but feel… very faintly disappointed that Q wasn’t in a state to continue their little experiment. He _had_ promised to explore this, after all.

But maybe these thoughts led somewhere helpful if pursued. Maybe… he had to stop thinking of Q as a human in distress. Maybe if he tried something new, some method of helping that was more suited to Q specifically…

Picard sat down on the bed and put a hand on the blanketed lump that was his entity. Q didn’t react. For the first time, Picard tried to consciously, deliberately open his mind to Q. He tried to pour into their connection every loving and soothing and supportive thought he had, to let Q know without words that he was safe here, he was loved. At first Q remained unresponsive, and Jean-Luc was afraid that it simply hadn’t worked, but then Q leaned ever so slightly into the touch. On the other end of their telepathic bond, Picard could feel a weak and weary flicker of appreciation and an answering warmth. He understood what it meant: Q was very tired, not in the physical but in the spiritual sense, but he was comforted by Picard’s attempt to reach out to him in his Q way.

He sighed and cuddled Q close to him. It was progress, however small.

 

* * *

 

When he entered his ready room in the morning, he found someone in his seat. The someone took the form of a Romulan woman wearing a robe with shoulder pads so enormous they seemed to defy the laws of physics.

Picard tapped his commbadge. “Picard to bridge.”

The line was silent.

“Captain Picard, I must simply ask you to stop that,” she said. The way she phrased it, her tone and inflection, seemed vaguely familiar, if not… very Romulan. “I am called Q. I was made aware that you currently have a member of our Continuum aboard your vessel.”

Picard straightened his spine, his hands tugging his uniform shirt into place. This Q seemed fairly no-nonsense. “If you’re referring to Q, then yes, he is here,” he said. “Did you… not know that?”

“He has been shutting himself off from the rest of us,” the Romulan Q replied. She seemed faintly uncomfortable. “I gather you’re… informed about the war.”

“Yes,” Picard said simply.

“Then I will just tell you without further ado that since the war ended, there have been frequent shut-outs among us, that is, many Q have withdrawn into themselves and are letting no one else in. It’s… the shock, we think.” She gestured a bit helplessly. Yes, they’d never had wars before, right? Q had mentioned something like that. Coping with the fallout was probably a new and unique challenge to the Continuum. Their telepathic link seemed important to them, Picard had surmised. A great number of Q curling in on themselves and not linking with anyone was probably causing confusion.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “Q needs time to process his recent traumatic experiences. I imagine so do the others.”

“It is vital that they rejoin society,” the Romulan Q snapped. “They have an obligation to the rest of us. Especially Q. He instigated this, so now that it’s over he must help us navigate the aftermath! He can’t just hide away and mope on this primitive vessel.”

“Well, ma’am or entity, I am the captain of this primitive vessel,” Picard said as calmly as he could. “Q is here as my guest. If it’s in any way within my power, I won’t let you see him and pressure him into returning to the Continuum before he is ready.”

“It’s not within your power,” the Romulan Q sneered. There was a flash of light, and she was gone.

Picard had a horrible suspicion as to where.

It was all he could do not to run at full speed out of the ready room, across the bridge and into the turbolift. He merely strode briskly and threw a “you have the bridge, Number One” over his shoulder in passing. Only when he exited the turbolift did he break into a sprint.

He found the Romulan Q in his bedroom. Q was still in bed, now curled tightly into a ball and completely concealed by blankets. The Romulan Q was pacing at the foot of the bed, gesturing in agitation.

“…and I know you like spending time with these mortals here,” she was saying, “but you really need to consider the situation we are in. Q and Q and Q are gone, Q won’t talk to anyone anymore, Q has left, Q has switched sides… we _need_ you at home! You can’t just hide away here and neglect your responsibilities! Poor Q is all alone in this, and Q is going to need you there! There is no time to waste on, on cowering somewhere gazing at our astral centers…”

Q said nothing.

“Oh, this is just pathetic now,” the Romulan Q sneered.

Q repeated himself.

“Go on, get up, show some backbone. You won! You got so much out of this! So many others are worse off, many are dead, many are permanently—”

“Ma’am,” Picard interrupted her thoughtfully, “may I ask which faction you belonged to?”

“What?” she snapped. “Freedom! Of course!”

“Then how come you’re harassing Q now?”

“I am not- I am merely explaining to Q that he has a responsibility… he is still expected to lead our faction, he has a _son_ now…”

Picard felt a jolt of something in his chest. “A son?”

“Oh,” the Romulan Q said in grim satisfaction. “You haven’t told your mortal lover, huh?”

“Q,” came a whisper from under the blankets, “be gone.”

“Be gone?” the Romulan Q repeated. “That’s what you’re going to say to me? You cannot treat me in that way. I fought for your ideas. I got in the line of fire for your ideas! I saw multiple good friends and good Q lay down their lives for your ideas! I saw… Q… my Q… I saw her… die… for your ideas…” She paused, seeming to freeze. Then she flashed out, only to immediately return on the other side of the bed. “And then you knocked up Q and now they’re telling us the war’s over, just like that!” she went on as if no interruption had occurred. “And that we’re going to have to just go on as if nothing had happened, because your spawn is going to somehow save us! All these eons we fought, for this? I am expected to resume my bond with these, these fascists in the conservative faction as if I hadn’t seen them literally scatter Q’s essence across five galaxies? No. No, you’re coming with me to the Continuum and you’re fixing this!”

There was a long, horrible moment of silence.

“I’m not coming,” whispered the blanketed lump.

Picard regarded the two entities. “Please,” he said quietly, stepping forward, “if I may offer my assistance.”

The Romulan Q sneered. “Why would we need your help for anything, mortal?”

“Because,” Picard said, smiling mildly, “I am from a savage, violent species that has fought many wars, in our past and recently. Whereas you, with due respect, seem to have been strangers to the concept until a rather short while back. And quite frankly, you seem to be struggling with the aftermath. I – we – might be able to help.”

“Ridiculous,” the Romulan Q snapped.

“No, let’s hear it,” said Q, peeking out from under the blankets.

“After the Dominion war,” Picard began, “we had a lot of fallout to navigate. Post-traumatic stress was at an all-time high. I take it you are not familiar with the term?”

“Of course I am,” said the Romulan Q. “It’s something mortals struggle with in their shoddy, inferior brains.”

“And which you are struggling with right now, evidently,” Picard remarked. He was already so used to the jabs against mortals, it genuinely didn’t faze him anymore. “Look at the both of you. You have lost friends, loved ones, family. You have seen death and destruction on a level that your species has previously considered impossible. Your society is reeling to recover from this. What you need now is not to plunge into another war, even if it’s one of politics and negotiations. What you need, what the Q need, is time to heal. Don’t you think that’s true?”

“How dare you,” said the Romulan Q. “We are perfectly capable—”

“We are not,” Q said, still not emerging from his blanket nest. “Jean-Luc is right. Look at us. We’re not well.”

“And if you two are not well, I reckon the rest of the Continuum isn’t either,” Picard said. “You _are_ a hivemind, aren’t you.”

“It’s an overwhelmingly simplistic term but, yes, we _are_ a hivemind,” the Romulan Q admitted.

“And if you two, and presumably many more of you, are having trouble coping with the aftermath of the war, I reckon that means all Q have a problem. It’s going to spread through your telepathic link and affect everyone, won’t it? That’s why so many Q have gone into hiding.”

“That’s exactly so,” Q whispered. “Jean-Luc, you are so brilliant. For a human, anyway.”

“So now that you’ve finished rubbing our temporary spot of weakness in our faces,” the Romulan Q said, “do you actually have a solution?” It was very clear that her aloof façade was only very superficially concealing her insecurities. There was a low-level tremble in her voice.

“Indeed,” Q said, “the Q don’t do therapy. At least, we’ve never done before.”

“Well, didn’t you fight for change?” Picard smiled. “We have an excellent counselor here.”

 

* * *

 

“Counselor Troi, I am asking you to undertake a task that will seem… daunting to you. And I really am asking you, not ordering you. You were assigned ship’s counselor, which makes you dutybound to offer counsel to the passengers on this vessel. Apart from that, you are under no obligation to take patients and I’m well aware of that.”

“Captain, you’re making it seem like you already believe I’ll say no.”

“I only wish to ensure that you at no point feel pressured into something. But I will also remind you of Starfleet’s primary mission, to seek out new life, to expand the boundaries of our knowledge and experience, to boldly—”

“Sir, may I just know what this is about? Do you want me to have a look at Q after all?”

“We are asking a bit more than that,” said the Romulan Q, materializing suddenly next to Picard in a diamond of light. To her credit, Deanna barely flinched.

“Ideally, you would not be treating Q,” she continued, “You’d be treating _the_ Q.”

“As in, all of you?”

“You offer counsel,” the Romulan Q said, spreading her arms in a gesture that was both pride and defeat. “The Continuum is in need… of counsel.”

“Hmm.” Deanna leaned thoughtfully against the door to her office. “How many of you are there?”

“Thousands. And one.”

“We’ll have to see how to fit you all into the office,” Deanna smiled.

“Space and time are of no consequence,” the Romulan Q said, with the ghost of an answering smile.

 

* * *

 

“You did good there,” Q said to Picard, when they were alone. He still had a blanket wrapped around him, but at least he was sitting up in bed and, most importantly, responsive again. “You found us a diplomatic solution. Very… Federation.”

“I’ll take it as a compliment,” Picard replied. He took Q’s hands. “And it's by no means the only problem ahead of you. It wasn’t only the war that made you hide out here, was it? It was the fact that you were expected to go on and reform the Continuum right away. You’d only just come out of battle, and they were already looking to load responsibilities onto your shoulders.”

Q nodded hesitantly. “Therapy in the Continuum,” he mused. “I wonder how it will go.”

“What did you do before? Did you not know mental illness at all?”

“We are made of pure thought, Jean-Luc,” Q said. “Every illness that affects us is a mental illness. And yes, these things exist. We do not tell outsiders, as it would harm the front of flawless omnipotence we’ve been presenting, but you’ve already seen us at our lowest, so… I might as well admit to this too, while I’m at it. Yes, the Q know disease. The black blight, the pink blight, temporal confusion, loss of dimensional awareness, boredom…”

“Boredom?” Picard raised a brow.

“Absolutely. We’ve been catatonic with it before Quinn did what he did. Boredom can be lethal.”

“Indeed. Now,” Picard said, “Tell me about your son.”

Q visibly flinched.

“I won’t do it again!” the entity blurted out.

“Do what again?”

“I won’t… have… another son? I suppose? I won’t seek out Q in this manner anymore. Once was more than enough, honestly.”

“I’m assuming Q is the… mother? Of the infant in question?”

“ _Mother_ is appropriate, yes. And she is. And she harbors some delusions as to our relationship, but I swear I won’t interact with her in any way beyond raising our child. I hope you find it within you to forgive my transgression, Jean-Luc. It was the best plan we could come up with. The war had to stop. I had to give the Continuum something new. Originally, I planned for the mother to be human, but, um… that didn’t work out quite as intended.”

“Q,” Picard said, raising his hand to stall the entity’s stream of words. “What transgression? We were not in a relationship at the time. Strictly speaking, we still aren’t. No betrayal has occurred.”

“But…” Q paused and blinked. “I made you certain promises…”

“I understand you were under a lot of stress when you did. And you couldn’t have predicted this outcome, could you?”

“No. Not at the time.”

“Well, then.” Picard sighed. “I, for one, have… realized while you were away that I might have feelings for you. Feelings, that is, beyond annoyance. Even... beyond friendship. The thought that you might never return… after everything that happened, going to the Continuum, linking my mind with yours… I would be sorely disappointed if our relationship were to end here. But if you feel like you must devote your time to your child and his mother, then so be it.”

Q suddenly laughed. It was startling, but refreshing to hear. “Oh, Jean-Luc,” he said, “no. I mean, of course I will have to take an active part in my son’s education. And it’s something I look forward to – he’s so _cute_. But I’m not seeing Q like that. And what I said to you before the war began still stands. You can even… adopt the kid! Or something! I’m sure he will learn a lot from you about humanity and empathy and ethics and compassion and all that other wonderful stuff…”

“Now, let’s not be too hasty!” Picard interrupted. “You know how I am with kids.”

“I really don’t. Let me guess, you’re splendid with them?”

“No, I’m terrible. I never know what to say to them. But if you want me to be a part of your son’s life, I will make an effort.”

Q smiled. It looked almost tender. “It’s not strictly necessary that you meet him,” he said. “Not for a while yet.”

“Not for a while yet? What is that supposed to mean?”

“Always with the questions.” Q shook his head. “It means come here and kiss me.”

And Jean-Luc did that. For the first time, the kiss did not feel desperate or rushed. It was only sweet.

 


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue. Q finds his niche in the post-war Continuum, as the author hopefully finds her place on Earth. I'm referring to myself in third person. I'm applying for jobs, which is among the reasons it took me so long to finish this. Sorry guys!
> 
> Right now I have a big thing in the works for another fandom (Dirk Gently) that I'll be devoting my time to, but I might just come back to Qcard somewhere down the road. It's a very special ship to me, and there's still a lot I could write.
> 
> So yeah this is now finished! Feel free to leave a comment or kudos if you liked it!

Jean-Luc looked up from the PADD he was reading when the doorbell chimed, but before he could give the command to open the door, Q simply breezed in through the wall only to flop down immediately on the couch.

“Jean-Luc,” he greeted simply, but with verve.

“Mon ange,” Picard said softly, setting the PADD down. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I’ve decided to spend the night here,” Q announced.

Over the last few weeks, ever since Q had finally set out to rejoin the Continuum, Picard had learned that Q wasn’t a live-in type of boyfriend. He came and went all as he pleased and didn’t ask leave of any. Picard didn’t see him physically every day, but every so often he felt a tendril of Q’s presence, nudging at his mind. It was as if whenever Q could spare a moment, he was checking up on him. Ever since Q had begun feeling better and making use of the therapy options now available to the Continuum, their minds had become intimately familiar with one another, but still Jean-Luc was awed every day by the fact that Q could do this from across space, time and dimensions.

Q now mimed taking something out of a pocket that today’s robe didn’t possess. Sometimes, him using his powers looked like sleight-of-hand, and Picard had no idea why he chose to present it that way. There was probably some profound underlying meaning to it.

What appeared now in Q’s hand was a greenish, glowing orb about the size of a tennis ball. “What is that?” Picard asked as Q put it down on the desk.

“A device,” Q said vaguely. “I am going to sleep in your bed. Please alert me if this thing makes a sound.”

“Hold on,” Picard said as Q got comfortable on the bed. Sleeping was a habit that Q was looking to maintain, it seemed. “Today’s the day, then? That’s what this all means?”

“There are no days in the Continuum,” Q said, fluffing up the pillows. “But yes, you could say that right now is the moment.”

“I’m sure it will all play out the way you want it to,” Picard said softly.

“Don’t be so certain yet,” Q argued. “My standing is difficult after the war. And I’ve never tried this before… I never even had an interest in it. What if they think I’m unqualified for the position?”

“They trusted you to lead them in battle. I’m sure they’ll trust you now as well.”

Q sighed and pulled a blanket up to his chest. “Well, I won’t just hang around and wait for the verdict to come in. As I said. Wake me.” He closed his eyes and was immediately fast asleep.

Picard simply continued filing his paperwork, pausing every now and then to shoot a fond glance at his entity. Oh yes, things had really changed. Picard was profoundly saddened by every change the war had caused in Q, but he found that he could also adore a Q who was less immature than at the start of their acquaintance, who cared about his society fiercely, who got actively involved with making improvements and yes, who grappled with the responsibilities of being a father. Q had spent a lot of time lately zipping around between the Continuum and the Enterprise, and every day he came back with another story to tell about the post-war negotiations or the extensive therapy the Continuum was undergoing or how his son was getting along. He told these stories with his usual boisterous flair that Picard had once found utterly insufferable, but which he could now tolerate, because there was an undercurrent of great affection and excitement to it which betrayed just how much Q wanted to take part in reforming the Continuum into something better and healthier. Jean-Luc was used to aloof detachment from Q, detachment from… everything. A Q that cared was a new and precious thing.

Which had now led them to today’s event.

Picard had been busy with his files and watching Q sleep for about two hours when the green orb made a beeping sound. Picard picked it up, puzzled for a moment over what to do with it, then gently touched Q’s shoulder.

“Q,” he said, “your device is going off.”

Q’s eyes snapped open as if he had never been really asleep. Picard knew he had been; it was just something he always did. His body didn’t seem to know how to do the whole sleepy confusion thing. “Oh dear, the device,” Q said. He took the orb from Picard’s hand and it stopped beeping. He made a complicated hand movement and the orb began to emit a small, yellow beam of some sort. It projected a script into the air before Q, consisting of letters Picard had never seen.

“What is—?” he began.

“This is the lost Tkon language,” Q explained absentmindedly. “You’d have no way of knowing it because the planet Tkon perished millions of your years ago.” He got busy scanning the letters, muttering to himself. “Oh of course Q got the most votes… and Q came in second, why am I surprised… and…” He suddenly fell silent, his eyes widening.

“Q?” Picard asked. “Is something wrong?”

“Jean-Luc, I came in third.” Picard didn’t often get to see Q surprised, but this was one of these rare moments. “Even with my difficult standing after the war… out of all twenty Q who applied for positions in the governing body, I got the third-most votes.”

“Twenty? Only twenty Q put themselves up for election?”

“Yes, we don’t elect a whole new government every time, we just replace any delegates who step down or… die, I suppose. Not that it ever happened before. The war is the reason why twenty spots opened up at once. The Q don’t… value government highly. Most of us barely adhere to the law, much less desire to sit around making law. It’s considered a boring job for sticklers. And… I suppose… one of these sticklers is me. I’m a government now.” It sounded hesitant, like he was trying the phrase out.

“Q, that is wonderful,” Picard said warmly. “I’m so happy for you.” He stepped up to the entity and hugged him. That was a thing they did now: touching each other. Physical affection always seemed to surprise Q, and Picard, who hadn’t nearly had enough of it throughout his life, could understand that. Q was still awkward at returning hugs, but he was steadily improving.

As they touched, their thoughts intertwined as well, the fringes of Q’s vast mind bleeding over into Picard’s. It still felt so very new, but already so very familiar.

_Aren’t you happy?_ Picard thought at Q. _Now you can get to work on changing the Continuum, like you wanted._

_It’ll be hard work,_ Q thought back. _I haven’t had to work hard for something since… since… well, ever, I suppose. I’m not sure I’m going to like it._

_But the results will be worth it._

_I hope so._

Q planted a lazy kiss on Picard’s temple. His lips then slid further down along his cheek, finally finding his mouth. In his mind, there was a strange blend of excitement, both about the election and being so close to his new, fascinating lover, and trepidation about the future.

_We are going to need some sort of_ … here Q thought a concept that was too abstract for Picard to comprehend. It had something to do with the Continuum, as a collective, all creating and sustaining some sort of… thought-concept together. Q then translated this, a bit haphazardly, to _written constitution. We need to get attuned to each other again, taking both factions into accord… we’re going to need new law and new legislation for that… there should be something written down somewhere, outside of our collective minds, where it’s safe from tampering… tricky._

_I see you’re already making plans._ Picard smiled against Q’s lips and slid a hand into his hair.

_Just a few ideas, is all._ Q moaned quietly at having his hair tugged at, and tried to huddle even closer to Picard.

_Mmh, don’t you have somewhere to be right now?_ Picard asked, wrapping an arm around the entity’s waist contrary to his words. _Not that I mind you being here but… you just won an election._

_I have all the time in the universe. I’ll celebrate with my siblings later. Right now, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here with you._

Jean-Luc could feel in his mind that the statement rang true, and, considering the fact that Q could be at any location anywhere in the universe at any time and perhaps even several at once, he cherished that.

 


End file.
